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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Medical Schools Face Limits in Responding to Physician Shortages, Survey Finds By KATHERINE S. MANGAN
American medical schools are not producing enough physicians to meet the country's needs, but they are limited in their ability to expand, according to an article in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The article summarizes the opinions of 73 of the nation's 126 medical-school deans, as well as officials of 44 medical societies.
Four out of five respondents concluded that the physician shortages were making it harder to recruit and retain clinical faculty members. Those professors not only train medical students and residents, but also support teaching hospitals and medical schools by generating patient-care revenue.
Even if they wanted to expand their enrollments, many deans said they lacked the facilities or the clinical faculty members to do so. In addition, they said, managed-care plans are kicking patients out of the hospital sooner, so there are fewer patients in teaching hospitals for medical students and residents to work with.
Altogether, the respondents reported that they could increase the ranks of medical students by just 8 percent over the next few years.
One factor working in the schools' favor is that after six years of steady decreases, the number of applications to medical schools inched up 3.4 percent this year.
Among medical specialties, the biggest shortages were reported in anesthesiology and radiology. Among subspecialties, shortages were frequently reported in cardiology, gastroenterology, and geriatrics. They were also noted in general surgery and surgical subspecialties, as well as adult primary care.
The study's principal author, Richard A. Cooper, is a professor of medicine and health policy at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He said the study should refute the long-held assumptions that the nation has too many physicians and that they are creating more demand for their services and driving up the cost of medicine.
"That's a view that's deeply embedded in policy thinking," he said, "but when we talked to people sitting in the catbird seat, they were talking about shortages, not surpluses."
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Medical Schools Face Limits in Responding to Physician Shortages, Survey Finds By KATHERINE S. MANGAN
American medical schools are not producing enough physicians to meet the country's needs, but they are limited in their ability to expand, according to an article in today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
The article summarizes the opinions of 73 of the nation's 126 medical-school deans, as well as officials of 44 medical societies.
Four out of five respondents concluded that the physician shortages were making it harder to recruit and retain clinical faculty members. Those professors not only train medical students and residents, but also support teaching hospitals and medical schools by generating patient-care revenue.
Even if they wanted to expand their enrollments, many deans said they lacked the facilities or the clinical faculty members to do so. In addition, they said, managed-care plans are kicking patients out of the hospital sooner, so there are fewer patients in teaching hospitals for medical students and residents to work with.
Altogether, the respondents reported that they could increase the ranks of medical students by just 8 percent over the next few years.
One factor working in the schools' favor is that after six years of steady decreases, the number of applications to medical schools inched up 3.4 percent this year.
Among medical specialties, the biggest shortages were reported in anesthesiology and radiology. Among subspecialties, shortages were frequently reported in cardiology, gastroenterology, and geriatrics. They were also noted in general surgery and surgical subspecialties, as well as adult primary care.
The study's principal author, Richard A. Cooper, is a professor of medicine and health policy at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He said the study should refute the long-held assumptions that the nation has too many physicians and that they are creating more demand for their services and driving up the cost of medicine.
"That's a view that's deeply embedded in policy thinking," he said, "but when we talked to people sitting in the catbird seat, they were talking about shortages, not surpluses."
